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Surgery For Weight Loss

By Zinn Jeremiah

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 24Oct2007
Word count: 427
Viewed: 188 time(s)

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Overweight has reached epidemic proportions, particularly in the United States where two-thirds of the population is overweight and one-third of the population is severely overweight, or obese. Given the sheer number of overweight people, not to mention the detrimental effects of being overweight, it’s expected that various solutions to losing weight would be available, and that is in fact the case. One particular weight loss method that’s gotten a good deal of notoriety is a surgical solution known as gastric bypass.

Gastric bypass occurs through making the stomach smaller and by allowing food to bypass part of the small intestine. The end result of gastric bypass is a sensation of feeling physically full sooner after eating than is typical, with fewer calories consumed. Fewer calories are also absorbed during eating after a gastric bypass procedure because of the reduced role of the small intestine in digestion.

The specific method for performing a gastric bypass procedure involves literally dividing the stomach into two sections, one considerably smaller than the other. This smaller section of stomach is what food comes into contact with first: because this initial section of stomach is so much smaller, it gives off signals of being full with a small amount of food intake. Though all procedures that alter the stomach for purposes of weight loss are referred to as gastric bypass, there are variations in the procedure. The most commonly performed gastric bypass is Gastric bypass, Roux en-Y (proximal). As the name suggests, Gastric bypass, Roux en-Y (proximal) is a complicated procedure, but what it basically serves to do is alter the small intestine and produce a feeling of fullness in the patient soon after eating.

In a very real sense, gastric bypass is an emergency procedure. Gastric bypass is only performed on obese individuals. Further still, gastric bypass is typically only performed on individuals who have been obese for a period of at least five years. Such individuals would be considered at high risk for the health risks from extreme overweight, and gastric bypass could be seen in such a situation as an effort to extend life. Gastric bypass is never performed as a cosmetic procedure for improving body image, as is the case with liposuction for instance. Gastric bypass is also often considered a last resort type of procedure and will often not be performed until other attempts at weight loss have been documented to have failed. When gastric bypass is performed, the typical time period for returning to normal activities is three to five weeks.

Zinn Jeremiah is an online writer. For weight loss help, visit weight loss help or weight loss program.

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